However, the recognition that educational theory must be grounded
in the interpretations of teachers, is not in itself sufficient. For while it
may be true that consciousness ‘defines reality’, it is equally true that
reality may systematically distort consciousness. Indeed, one of the
major weaknesses of the interpretive model identified in Chapter 3
was its failure to realize how the self-understandings of individuals
may be shaped by illusory beliefs which sustain irrational and
contradictory forms of social life. For this reason, a third feature of
any adequate approach to educational theory is that it must provide
ways of distinguishing ideologically distorted interpretations from those
that are not. It must also provide some view of how any distorted selfunderstanding
is to be overcome.
Another related weakness of the ‘interpretive’ approach discussed